Powerleap throws hat into K6-III upgrade ring

Promises Q2 shipping date

And the winner of the race to produce the first AMD K6-III upgrade kit is -- not Evergreen for once -- but fellow US upgrade specialist Powerleap. To be precise, Powerleap is not the first to market, merely the first to announce product, something altogether different. Powerleap K6-III upgrade CPUs are priced according to speed and will retail from around $100 to $349. They will ship sometime over the next three months. Powered by the 400MHz Sharptooth processor, Powerleap upgrades soup up performance for former K6-233MHz-powered kit, by up to 200 per cent, according to ZD Winstone and Winstone 3D benchmarks cited by the company. According to Powerleap, the upgrades are appropriate for the "10 million-plus K6-2-based systems sold during the past 2.5 years". Pentium systems suitable for upgrade include those using 75, 90, 100, 120, 133, 150, 166, 200, and 233MHz processors. The upgrade kits utilise some Powerleap-owned power technology. This means the processor upgrade can be used as a "direct replacement for the existing processor, regardless of the system's original motherboard and voltage". There are some exceptions from the Intel and Cyrix catalogue that will require a BIOS upgrade -- check out Powerleap for compatibility information. ® See alsoEvergreen introduces 370-pin upgrades